Á. Birtalan (ed.).: Bálint of Szentkatolna, Gábor: A Romanized Grammar of the East- and West-Mongolian Languages (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 3.)

Introduction - The research journey (1871-1874)

Bálint of Szentkatolna (13 March 1844 Transylvania, Szentkatolna, near Kézdivásárhely [today Tárgu Secuiesc] - 26 May 1913 Transylvania, Temesvár [today Timi§oara]) had an exceptional talent for languages and wished to realize the aims of his great example, Alexander Csorna de Kőrös (1784-1842 Hung. Körösi Csorna Sándor). He wanted to master as many languages as possible and to become acquainted with numerous cultures in order to find the place of his people, the Sekels (Hung. Székely) and in a w ider sense that of the Magyars, in the world. He learnt ardently from his early childhood and during his studies at various faculties (law. humanities) in Vienna and later in Budapest, he turned with growing interest to the Oriental languages and prepared for long fieldwork among the ethnic groups he aimed to study (about his fieldwork methods cf. below in detail). The leading scholar of the epoch, Ármin Vámbéry (1832-1913) exercised considerable influence on him, and upon his recommendation János Fogarasi (1801-1878), the enthusiastic researcher of the Hungarian language, one of the compilers of the Dictionary of the Hungarian Language

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0 became his patron. Fogarasi suggested to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to send Bálint to Asia to conduct research on Mongolian languages first of all. Fogarasi hypothesized the possible language contacts between Hungarian and Mongolian and probably hoped to find evidence with the help of Bálint's research. He remained Bálint's supporter and an inexhaustible propagator of his achievements.

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1 THE RESEARCH JOURNEY (1871-1874) Bálint started his research trip to Turkic and Mongolian speaking peoples in the summer of 1871. After his arrival back in Hungary in 1874, he delivered a report at the session of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2 March 1874). His account was published in the next year and reprinted by György Kara in 1973.

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2 It is a valuable document of the epoch and a detailed description of his field work methods. One of his main endeavours was to master the spoken languages, collect materials of the spoken dialects and prepare their grammars. His field researches started in June 1871 in Kazan where he dealt with the spoken dialect of the Christianised Tatars on the advice of N. Il'minskij.

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3 As a result of this field research, he published three volumes devoted to the text material, the vocabulary and the grammar of the Christian Kazan Tatars: Kazáni tatár szövegek és fordítás. Budapest 1875, Kazáni tatár szótár. Budapest 1876, Kazáni tatár nyelvtan. (Hang- alak- és mondattan). Budapest 1877. keleti utazó tudósításai (1871). In: Pályánk emlékezete. Válogatás az Akadémiai Értesítő írásaiból. (Magyar Tudomány Füzetek 2.) Budapest, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia 2002. pp. 74-78. [Reports of the eastern traveller, Gábor Bálint (1871). In: Reminiscences about our Vocation (Essays on the Hungarian Science)]. The researcher of Bálint's life, Jenő Zágoni, has recently republished some of Bálint's articles and introduced the collection with a detailed life story based on Bálint's letters and diary. Szentkatolnai Bálint Gábor, Válogatott írások. Ed. and published by Jenő Zágoni. Budapest 2005. pp. 7-58. [Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna, Selected articles] 1

0 The famous and also controversial Dictionary is a thesaurus of dialectal and vernacular words: Czuczor, Gergely - Fogarasi, János: A magyar nyelv szótára. [Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] Published between 1862 - 1874. Electronic version (CD-ROM) published in Budapest, Arcanum 2003. 1

1 Fogarasi read out Bálint's letters and accounts for the academic plenary sessions, as it is documented in several issues of the Akadémiai Értesítő [Proceedings of the Academy] (reedited by György Kara with the original page numbering: cf. Kara: Bálint Gábor keleti levelei.). Cf. also the letters preserved in the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (farther: LHAS; e. g. RAL 1301/1870 or 1305/870). 1

2 Bálint Gábor Jelentése Oroszország- és Ázsiában tett utazásáról és nyelvészeti tanulmányairól. Melléklet öt khálymik dano hangjegye. In: Értekezések a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Nyelv- és Széptudományi Osztálya köréből IV. (1875) pp 1-19. [Gábor Bálint's report on his journey in Russia and Asia and on his linguistic studies. With notes of five Kalmyk songs. In: Treatises from the Department of Linguistics and Aesthetics of the Hungarian Academy of the Sciences]. 1

3 Bálint Gábor jelentése, pp. 4-10 (cf. Kara: Bálint Gábor keleti levelei.)-, Berta: Op. cit. p. 6. XI